Aisam in Doubles final in Thailand

LAHORE: Pakistan’s tennis top notch, Aisam‑ul‑Haq and India’s Rohan Bopanna fought a battle of nerves to beat a strong pair of Noam Okun and Harel Levy of Israel after a marathon match 6-4,3-6,10-6 to move to the doubles final of ATP Challenger Korat Open in Thailand on Saturday. In the Final they will face the Thai favourite pair of Sanchai Ratiwatana & Sonchai Ratiwatana. According to a message received here, in a match in which fate kept twisting on either sides,Aisam & Partner made an early breakthrough when they broke their opponent’s serve but Rohan was broken back to level it to 4-4. Thanks to some aggressive winners in the following game by the Indo-Pak duo, they were able to edge past Okun & Levy again to take a 5-4 lead. Here Aisam made no mistakes in securing the set by out rightly serving out with sizzling aces to clinch the first set. The second set was going rather evenly till 3-4 when a couple of loose volleys pushed Aisam & Rohan to a break down, enabling their opponents to take home second set to leave the issue alive at 1-1. However, the Indo-Pak peace rail, as the pair of Aisam & Rohan is generally called in international tennis circles, went all charged and hit ace after ace and winner after winner to win it by 10-6. Earlier in the Quarter final too, Aisam & Rohan had a tough match against an all Indian pair of Purav Raja & Ashutosh Singh. The Indo-Pak due recovered from a set down at 4-6 to a one set all when they secured the second set with a score of 6-3.In the super tie break they made a huge recovery from six match points down to win with a score of 13-11.